Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Hinges Made Easy


First off, let me say that the attention I've been getting over this blog being featured in "Model Aviation" magazine has been staggering! 

The picture above shows a "World View" of the most recent hits to this blog (double click to enlarge it slightly).

Pretty wild huh!?! :-)

Anyways, thank you to all of you who have been emailing me with such nice words. I'm grateful! And, a special thanks to Jay Smith, the assistant editor from "Model Aviation" who wrote it. Thanks for featuring a  "normal guy" like me in such a stellar magazine!

Ok - now on to the hinges!

Since I first got into this hobby I've been frustrated trying to cut perfect hinge lines. I was told when I got into this to just "eye it up" with an exacto knife & that was good enough. :-( The results however... were not good enough. Lots of gaps (bad for flight) and ugly too!

I was in a "Michael's" craft store getting a matte made for a frame... when I realized that those matte's are made with a 45 degree cut! :-) Hhhmmm... now I wonder what tool they were using to do that! :-) A quick search online FOUND ME a slew of devices! :-) The cheapest was this. I bought mine for under $20 at MisterArt.com but it can also be purchased at other places like dickblick.com



Its not "cheap" - but, it does an excellent job! I've been using it ever since - and making NICE hinges! :-)

(Double click the picture to enlarge it)

The rc hobby industry has caught on to this idea & is making similar tools now. I've not tried any of them as I already have the tool above - but, of the ones I've read about - this one is the cheapest (as of this post anyways). It is available from lightflite.com for only $12 (scroll down the page to find it).
















Hope this helps!